Moyes does a lot better of a job than by rights he should do, his transfer budget is low & a lot of the money made from player sales doesn't filter back through to the squad - over the last few seasons they've only spent around £12.5m despite raking in over £30m in player sales between Arteta & Lescott. (not including this season where they've spent something like £10m - and I personally hope they get utterly shafted at the tribunal for glass-legs Naismith) If he was given a consistent transfer budget befitting a team which has finished in the top 10 7 times in 10 years he would probably be challenging top 5 on a regular basis - although never getting close to breaking into the Champions League.

Even thou Moyes is probably my favourite PL manager, i'm not gonna jump on the Everton (and Swansea for that matter) bandwagon. I expect Everton at 6 or 7 again this year with maybe wining 1 of the cups.

On a side note, everyone can take a breath as Rooney is going to be alright! *grin* ;D

(clickie for bigger pic)

He seemed to be chillaxing on the stretcher while they took him off, didn't seem like he was in a great deal of pain. Either way good to know his leg will be fine and he'll be back in a month (or however long it was). Part of me is glad we have RVP now, to "fill" his role while he's recovering (not that Hernandez or Welbeck couldn't, but after RVP's last season I think he'll fill the role better ^^).

Any further north & the English womens team may have got considerably better in an instant!

---------- Post added 2012-08-29 at 12:48 AM ----------

I'm gonna have a rant, bear with me folks this may get ugly & profane but it's about the whole ethos of slating players for their wages. So I read a lot of press coverage online about various things and every column I've read over the past few weeks regardless as to if it's talking about random superstar X wanting more wages or generic journeyman's move from mid table club to mid table club has the same fucking idiotic theme - "overpaid, wish I was getting their money for working not even a quarter of the time!". Makes my blood boil, this champagne fuckin socialist outlook on life that anyone earning more than £25k a year is overpaid and holy crap god forbid there should be people on any more than £25k a week, those guys are the fuckin devil to those idiots!

Firstly there's tax, in the UK we have this marvelous system whereby we pay income tax, we all know it, most of us hate it but we all live with it because y'know, stuff needs paying for right? What the majority of afforementioned nuggets don't realise is that footballers are premium end taxpayers, their wage may indeed be obscene but when you take into account it comes with a 50% tax band you can see that well, that £50,000 a week footballer isn't really taking home that headline figure is he, no, he's helping to pay for your kid going to school, he's just paid the cop you just phoned to report the drunk scally in the street & just last week he fed 10,000 children in the UK.

Next there's the misconception that they only work 90 minutes on a weekend & 2 hours training a day, utter bullshit, being a professional sportsman (this applies to almost all professional sportsmen & women from real sports) he has a 24 hour a day 7 day a week 52 weeks a year job, from which they're likely forced to retire at the age of 35-40 if they're lucky. Where the average joe might fancy a good old fashioned pizza or fish & chips they'll go out and get it, they're probably sipping on a can of coke a day or think that the nutritional information on the packs are just for dieters. Even the bog standard lower league player cannot do any of that, they monitor their intake meaning while they may have families who will want the pizza & chips for tea they have to stick with the diet plan laid out by the club nutritionalist to keep them in optimum performance mode - no pizza for them. The player will know exactly what is in their food, how it affects them in relation to performance & how to best prepare for the weekend, something the average joe sees as lining their stomach prior to the friday night down the Dog & Duck followed up with a lovely kebab on the stagger home.

Then there's upheaval, player is transferred from club to another club, sounds cushty, but that player often has to uproot their family in order to do their job causing kids to have to adjust their social circle, partners to have to figure out where things are all over again, new home & often times all in a foreign country - yeah, good luck, most average joes struggle to move home in the same damn town & only do it 3-4 times in their life. How much of a pain in the arse must that be if they have kids in school, what sort of anguish must that cause - oh it doesn't matter, he's on £50,000 a week, he's the devil incarnate...

There's also the fact when average joe has a crap day at work chances are at worst his boss lets him know, but when average player has a bad game he's got 20,000+ telling him in no uncertain terms, letting them know in colourful language (we've all been guilty of it) what they're gonna do oh and by the way your wife's a shit ride & your Mum isn't any better. Compared with the number of people who take off work with "stress" or shit I'd love to see how the nuggets would cope with that. Oh and average joe goes to work knowing that unless they're in a handfull of jobs the chances are they're coming home at the end of their shift healthy, the player on the other hand goes to work knowing one mistimed tackle ends their career instantly, or at best will leave them injured and well, lets be honest, knows that even if they're not injured, the chances are they're going home covered in bruises with minor aches & pains.

argh just fed up of the current trend for people thinking that it's cool to rag on players for being paid high salaries, do I think that some of them are out of control, yeah, but lets be fair I would hate to be in Wayne Rooney's shoes knowing what he has to deal with and sure as hell wouldn't do it for less than £50k a week.

I want to actually print out that rant, with a few amends for language and colloquialism, and frame it for my wall.

Though you missed a line out of it. Footballers are THE attraction of a club, no one goes to a game to watch the mascots loaf about, or just so they can eat the pies and they certainly don't go to cheer on the officials. They're the people bringing millions through the gates every year around the country. They're selling the shirts, they're the reason the tv deals are so lucrative. Each of them as an individual, especially the top name stars, are a brand in themselves.

The club makes a fortune off those brands, and they're due proportional share of the income.

I agree completely with that rant. Everyone criticises them but ignore what they do with that money and how much they actually take home, only focus on the negatives.
Decent games this week (Liverpool - Arsenal) should be good. I'm predicting Arsenal won't score again

I agree completely with that rant. Everyone criticises them but ignore what they do with that money and how much they actually take home, only focus on the negatives.
Decent games this week (Liverpool - Arsenal) should be good. I'm predicting Arsenal won't score again

I predict arsenal to go unbeaten with 0-0 through all games this season! (to be fair I would be okey then that! somewhat )

If we don't progress this year it'll be beyond disasterous. You'd struggle to hand us an easier draw, ok fine somewhere like Olympiakos instead of an away game in Turkey would be nice, but that group is the type managers dream of the night before the draw.

Yeah very decent luck of draw for United, seriously if we don't progress through this year, then something is very very wrong lol. Just don't play Nani! PLEASE!. City not so lucky, that's going to be a tough group.

Interesting call to give Iniesta the European footballer of the year ahead of both Messi and Ronaldo, I would've thought that Messi having the best season in history would've almost guaranteed the award! 81 goals and 30 assists for club and country last season, breaking records galore along the way and still gets pipped by Iniesta! We shall see at the FIFA Balon D'or award ceremony in January whether he gets that though!

Celtic are getting fucked all ways, they may grab a draw at home against Spartak but they'll be lucky to get much from that group, however Group D is just OOOUUUCHHH that's the sort of group that gives you nightmares, absolutely no weak links in there at all.

Iniesta should have won this years ago. He is phenominal at both club and country level, his midfield dominance is one of the main reasons Barca and Spain do so well.

He might not deliver the ball in the back of the net, but most of the time, it wouldn't be in the final third of the pitch without his efforts.

Still my dream player that I'll never see in a United shirt.

Oh definitely, don't get me wrong, I love Iniesta, I think Xavi and he are two f the best midfielders ever and are both pivotal to Barça and Spain's success. Though in my honest opinion Messi is the best player I have ever seen, though as I'm not old enough to have seen Maradona / Pèlè play I can't say whether he is the greatest ever, though if he carries on at this rate I believe he will be the greatest ever. His touch is incredible, fantastic finisher, extremely fast, great balance, can take free kicks, penalties and his passing and vision are both extraordinary.